The present invention relates, in general, to a cationic finished textile material. The present invention further relates to the use of a cationic finished textile material for preventing discolorations or greying of textiles during washing.
When textiles are washed, dyes from the textiles regrettably dissolve in the wash liquor as well as the soil and dirt. And there is a risk that dyes regrettably lost into the wash liquor will end up discoloring, staining or tinting other textiles or to be more precise garments present in the wash liquor (for example in a washing-machine drum); an unwanted color transfer from one textile to another with an undesirable discoloration is the consequence, and white and light-colored textiles acquire an unwelcome greyness. In the case of colored, for example patterned (for example striped or dotted) textiles, however, discolorations can also occur within the same textile.
The unwanted color transfer through the so-called bleeding or leaching of textile dyes cannot be prevented by laundry detergent ingredients.
There are a multiplicity of reasons as to why dyes can detach from textiles, so that this problem is a very complex one. To ensure durable coloration of textiles, different fibers require different classes of dye and dyeing processes. If the dyes are not attached to the fibers through a sufficiently firm bond or are incorporated in the fibers as a water-insoluble pigment, they migrate during the wash along the concentration gradient from the dye-rich textile to the dye-lean wash liquor and there they can go on to other textiles and discolor them. This process is temperature dependent. In a washing operation, therefore, the temperature is the most important parameter in that an increasing washing temperature also increases the risk of discoloration. On the other hand, severe soiling can in some instances only be removed by washing at relatively high temperatures.
It thus finally remains to be noted that mobile dyes from colored textiles are the main cause of textiles turning grey and discoloring. As mentioned above, this undesirable transfer of color through the undesired bleeding or leaching of textile dyes can not be prevented by laundry detergent ingredients.
One conventional attempt to solve this problem is to color-sort the textiles in private households before washing in that, for example, reds are only washed with reds, light-colored laundry only with light-colored laundry, etc. But this has the disadvantage that the soiled laundry first has to be collected and stored until there is enough of it to fill a washing-machine drum. In addition, discolorations of multicolored textiles within the same textile cannot be prevented in this way.
Another approach is to trap, intercept or scavenge the dyes which have regrettably been released into the wash liquor. Commercially available, single use cloths, which are based on a fibrous unwoven web (of viscose or of cellulose for example), have a certain affinity for textile dyes and are able to trap or scavenge them in a certain way out of the wash liquor and thereby render them harmless so to speak. Disadvantages of these commercially available cloths to protect against discolorations are, first, that they are merely single use, disposable materials which are only designed for one washing operation, since the material has not been rendered sufficiently robust to survive more than one wash, and secondly that the finish with the “dye scavengers” cannot be engineered such that is available to a sufficient degree for a multiplicity of washing operations.
It would therefore be desirable and advantageous to provide means suitable for preventing the above-described problem of discoloration of textiles in the wash liquor and to obviate prior art shortcomings. It would also be desirable and advantageous to provide an improved textile material capable of obviating the discoloration of textiles present in the wash liquor, in particular of taking up, trapping, intercepting or scavenging regrettably released textile dyes out of the wash liquor and so avoid or prevent any discoloration of the other textiles present in the wash liquor.